A week after the Paris attacks, many questions remain unanswered

One week after gunmen carried out a coordinated attack in central Paris, investigators are still working to unravel the plot behind the assault.

Seven of the attackers who killed 130 people and wounded dozens of others died Nov. 13, with some detonating suicide vests. An eighth man is still on the run, and there has been much speculation about a possible ninth attacker. The supposed ringleader of the group, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was killed in a raid Wednesday.

Islamic State (ISIS) militants have claimed responsibility for the attacks, but with the alleged ringleader dead, authorities are still piecing together the plot.

Salah Abdeslam, the eighth attacker who has been directly linked to the violence on Friday, is still on the loose. He and his brother Ibrahim, who was killed in the siege, rented three cars registered to Belgium, which were all used during the attack.

He was also spotted on CCTV driving one of the black Seat vehicles which carried one of the groups of attackers in Paris. French police issued a wanted poster for his arrest.

France's national police chief says his whereabouts are still unclear. Jean-Marc Falcone, speaking Friday on France-Info radio, said he is unable to say if Abdeslam could be back on French territory.

"We can't say anything about the exact geographic situation of that individual," he said.

European officials earlier acknowledged that French police stopped Abdeslam the morning after Friday's attacks at the Belgian border but then let him go.

While many have speculated about his whereabouts — he was apparently driven into Belgium by two friends early Saturday morning, and Belgian media says he may have met with a friend in Molenbeek on Tuesday — there has been no confirmed sighting by police.

Still, it has left Brussels on edge, in particular in Molenbeek, a predominantly Muslim working class area that has come under international scrutiny.

Muslim women shop in a market in Molenbeek in the Brussels-Capital Region on Nov. 17, 2015.

Image: Kyodo/Associated Press

Iraqi officials told the Associated Press that intelligence officials had warned France of a potential attack one day before the Paris assault. They claim the Paris attacks were planned in Raqqa, Syria — the Islamic State's de-facto capital — before the attackers returned to Europe. It is also unclear who else was involved in the planning and execution of the attacks, and French and Belgian officials have both conducted several raids in relation to the investigation this week.

A Wednesday morning raid on an apartment in Paris' Saint-Denis neighborhood may have raised more questions than it answered. Belgian-born 28-year-old Abdelhamid Abaaoud died alongside his cousin, Hasna Aitboulahcen, who detonated a suicide vest when police entered the apartment.

Police officers destroy a door to enter an apartment in the Paris suburb of Saint Denis on Nov. 18, 2015.

Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said Abaaoud was traced to the apartment in Saint-Denis through phone taps and surveillance.

French prosecutors confirmed Friday that a third body was found in the Saint-Denis apartment, that of a woman, but have yet to identify her.

Belgium police are still investigating ties between Brussels and the attack. Abaaoud was a Belgian national and both Salah Abdeslam and his brother Ibrahim Abdeslam, who died in the attack, have links to the Molenbeek neighborhood of Brussels.

Since the Belgian connection was discovered, the government has vowed to tighten security and crack down on suspected extremists.

Prime Minister Charles Michel presented a new $420 million security plan to "fight against terrorism" that include expanded powers for police to search and wiretap any suspects. It also allows authorities to jail suspected fighters returning to Belgium from Iraq and Syria.

France meanwhile has extended a state of emergency in the country for the next three months and on Friday urged European Union partners to take immediate action to tighten the region's borders and prevent the entry of more violent extremists.

"We can't take more time. This is urgent," Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said. "Terrorists are crossing the borders of the European Union."

On Friday, French President Francois Hollande's office said he will lead a national ceremony Nov. 27 honoring the victims of the deadliest attacks on France in decades. The ceremony will be held at the gold-domed Hotel des Invalides, where Napoleon's tomb lies and which is seen as a symbol of France's military and international strength.

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